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Long before Beyonce decided to redefine “diva” for pop culture, the term was associated with high culture. Nevertheless, divas of then and now have maintained a reputation, as late comedian Anna Russell explains, “…you would need to be a glorio… …

Early this morning police took down San Francisco’s Occupy encampment – the last large Occupy camp in the Bay Area. Seventy people were arrested, a few on felony charges of assaulting an officer…

Meanwhile, anti-tax groups filed a ballot measure today in response to Governor Brown’s tax initiative, which would raise sales tax by half-a-cent and create new taxes for the wealthy. The ballot measure would lock in recession-era spending levels and redirect money from schools to pay off state debt. The governor, however, argues that the revenue from his tax proposal would boost the education budget, not cut from it…

To aid California’s economy, Governor Brown has also proposed a 12-point pension reform plan, designed to raise the retirement age and offer less generous state and local pension benefits. There’s bound to be a union fight, but according to a recent poll, the majority of Californians are in support of scaling back public employees pension benefits…

Despite a staggering state economy, the South Bay led the nation in job growth last year, reporting a 3.2% market growth. Apple, Google, and Facebook are largely responsible for the increase in jobs, which some suspect – and hope – will spread throughout the Bay Area…

Despite the vibrant economy, the South Bay’s Portola and Castle Rock state parks face closure next July, unless the Portola and Castle Rock Foundation can raise $500,000. A similar campaign succeeded in saving the 87,000-acre Henry Coe State Park near Morgan Hill….

Meanwhile in San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee is thinking about vetoing legislation that would transform a Pacifica golf-course into 417 acres of natural park land…

And finally, you might be unhappy with the state of politics in California, but at least we’re providing great fodder for the Daily Show!

In an attempt to prevent deeper cuts to schools and other public services, Governor Jerry Brown has filed a ballot measure that would increase the sales tax by half a cent and income taxes by one or two percent, depending on annual salary. People who earn less than $250,000 will not see any change in their income tax rate. A number of outside groups have filed alternative tax measures as well, so tax hikes in California may be inevitable… …

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Meanwhile, members of an organization called “The 99 Percent Solution” have purchased a full-page ad in today’s Chronicle explaining their plan to create jobs, reduce widening income disparity, and curb government spending. Given how much criticism the movement has received for lacking concrete goals, Occupy’s first steps into the political realm may signify a shift away from symbolic gestures and towards more definitive ones… …

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The President of the University of California, Mark G. Yudof, has assembled a task force to assess the UC Davis police department’s use of pepper spray in response to a student protest on Novemeber 18th. Members of the task force include professors, administrators and undergraduates… …

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In light of recent cuts to education and rising concerns over unnecessary government spending, voter support for the California’s high-speed rail project is waning. According to a recent Field Poll, after seeing the final price tag (which runs close to $100 billion), more than a third of the project’s initial supporters would now vote ‘no’ if given the chance. Nearly two thirds of voters would like a revote on the project… …

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Famed international sailing competition America’s Cup is coming to San Francisco’s historic piers. But to make space for the event, a number of the piers’ long-time tenants are being forced to relocate: In the next two years, 77 businesses will have to clear out. Some of the displaced will receive rent credits to help ease the transition. …

California counties, facing large influxes of new prisoners through the state’s new realignment policy, are using state funds differently. Some are utilizing more money for service programs run by non-profits, while others are sinking the bulk into l… …

In the battle between Bordertown Skatepark vs. Caltrans, Caltrans has won. Skateboarders who helped build Bordertown beneath a 580 freeway overpass in Emeryville showed up to video tape the demolition. In August, skateboarders also lost The Spot Skatep… …

A petition to recall Oakland Mayor Jean Quan will begin circulating as early as next week. The mayor’s opponents will need to collect 19,800 signatures in 160 days to qualify for the ballot…
Occupy Oakland demonstrators are looking for ways to main… …

The education of young people is increasingly, if not exclusively, coming from the internet. And a big part of it is from the website Wikipedia. The English-language version alone has more than three million entries. It’s consistently ranked as one of the most visited websites in the world, after Facebook and before Twitter. And in the last few years, Wikipedia has started spreading to college classrooms, but not without its share of controversies and concerns.

Academics have accused the site of being full of inaccuracies. Even Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, says college students shouldn’t use it for class projects or serious research.

But, as KALW’s Nicole Jones reports, professors at top universities think students are inevitable contributors to Wikipedia’s evolution.

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NICOLE JONES: A couple of years ago an assistant professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, named Brian Carver, was doing an Internet search for his cyber law course on the Stored Communications Act. It’s an act that regulates how the government can use personal Internet data.

BRIAN CARVER: And one of the first hits was the Wikipedia article and so I followed it and as I poked around a bit, I realized that Wikipedia did not have a stand-alone article on the Stored Communications Act and I thought, “Well, it ought to. This is an important act.” So then I thought, “Well Brian, you should fix that.”

Not him, exactly. In the spring of 2009 he put his students to work on it. It was a risk. There were almost no experienced Wikipedia editors in the class. But in the end, Carver says his students added to the coverage of legal topics in Wikipedia – and got a grade for it.

CARVER: One of my favorite comments that a student made is that this was the first paper he’d ever written that wouldn’t end up in his professor’s recycling bin.

In fact, it could be read around the world. A year later, the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia, got a grant to start an education program and spread Wikipedia to college classrooms. The goal? To improve the quality of public policy content on the site.

Carver’s class was just a start. Wikimedia has now expanded the program to at least 47 other courses at universities including Harvard, Georgetown, and UC Berkeley. Quite a turnaround for a website once considered something of a questionable cheat sheet.

A few years ago, the Middlebury College history department banned the use of the site after students repeatedly used faulty answers from a Wikipedia entry on an exam. Several other colleges, including UC Santa Barbara and the University of Illinois have had similar problems.

LIANNA DAVIS: We’re trying to change the perception of Wikipedia in academia.

Lianna Davis is a communications manager for the Wikimedia Foundation.

DAVIS: Your students are going to be using Wikipedia regardless of whether you put “No Wikipedia” on the top of your syllabus.

Students everywhere have been using Wikipedia as a research tool, long before the Wikimedia Foundation officially encouraged it. And Carver says he knows plenty of professors who rely on Wikipedia for teaching.

CARVER: When you look at the quality of information that Wikipedia versus some of those other top 10 hits, Wikipedia often compares quite favorably. I think a lot of those quality concerns were unfamiliarity with the entire idea of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

But Wikipedia has made huge progress in accuracy thanks to its community of dedicated volunteers: its Wikieditors.

A longtime trusted Wikieditor can become an administrator with powers to protect articles, delete articles, and block other users. Davis says it’s the work of these volunteers – and now students – that keeps Wikipedia honest.

DAVIS: What we wanted to have come out of this is: A) just the students improve the quality of the articles for sure, but B) is the element of media literacy.

Wikipedia requires that editors back everything up by citing journals, books, and newspapers – just like in any research paper.

DAVIS: One of the professors actually told us that through the course of this assignment that her students were actually forced to go to the library for the first time and she thought many of them had never set foot in the library prior to being asked to write a Wikipedia assignment

The method behind quality control is tricky, whether it’s dealing with Wikivandals who post defamatory entries about religion or Wikieditors who can’t agree on whether a human with a cat is its “owner,” “caregiver,” or “human companion.”

CARVER: It’s out there and your students are using it, and actually faculty are using it to. It’s more of a question of whether we are going to prepare our students to operate in this new environment or not. If we are training students to be better critical readers, that’s a great thing.

And not only better critical readers, but vital content creators, too. One student at Georgetown University wrote an article on the National Democratic Party of Egypt in November of 2010. When he finished his article in December, everything changed with the Arab Spring. Davis said his article went from getting 200 to 300 views a day to more than 5,000.

DAVIS: It just shows the power of these assignments where you never know when the topic the student is writing on is actually something that is going to be critically important.

In the Wikiworld, homework assignments are no longer destined for the recycling bin of history. Students last year contributed 5,600 printed pages worth of content to the English Wikipedia – that’s the double the amount from the year before. And as the program expands, expect to see Canadian, Indian, and Brazilian students making a dent in their versions of Wikipedia.

For Crosscurrents, I’m Nicole Jones.

Nicole Jones is a reporter with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

What do you think about college students creating Wikipedia content? Do you think it’s being used responsibly? Share your thoughts on our Facebook page.

A long night at Occupy Los Angeles ended with arrests, but the threatened camp closure did not transpire. There was nothing to report at the Occupy Long Beach encampment either which police were also expected to raidl. UC students plan a general strike today to protest the regents’ meeting and escalating tuition. Protests are expected to take place at campuses all over the state…

The state of California is trying out a two year transitional Kindergarden program. The additional year of schooling for tots will be available to students born between September 2 and December 2 starting in 2014…

Gold and other precious metals are fetching record prices, and that’s meant big business for pawn shops in Oakland where police say criminals are dumping stolen goods for cash. The problem is most pronounced in the Fruitvale neighborhood where Oakland admits that it has issued too many permits for pawn shops, and stick-ups on the street for jewelry are on the rise…

Santa Clara County is opening up more beds for the homeless. The extra 365 beds will put a small dent in the county’s estimated 7,000 homeless population…

The National Retail Federation says 226 million people spent more than 52 billion dollars while shopping on Black Friday. That’s a new record in participation, and a big sales increase from last year’s 45 billion dollars. Today is Cyber Monday, and retailers are already reporting higher than normal sales over the weekend on the internet…

Druid Heights in Marin County meets the criteria for the register of National Register of Historic Places. The five-acre estate was once home to philosopher Alan Watts, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder, and prostitutes union founder Margot St. James, where they shared a lifestyle deprived of many modern comforts. The property awaits acceptance into the National Register.

Police in riot gear dismantled the Occupy Cal tents on the UC Berkeley campus early this morning. Two protesters were arrested, but it was otherwise calm and orderly….

When Occupy Oakland campers were evicted, again, on Sunday night, mayor Jean Quan was torn over her decision to clear the encampment. Her deputy mayor, Sharon Cornu, and legal adviser, Dan Siegel, both resigned following the action, but pressure from other officials and the murder near Occupy Oakland on November 10 urged her to press on with the eviction…

Meanwhile, San Francisco mayor Ed Lee says he seeks dramatic changes at the Occupy San Francisco encampment, but hasn’t yet ordered police to shut it down. So far, the city has issued 11 demands, including a limit of 100 tents (there are currently about 200) and no alcoholic beverages. San Francisco Fire chief Joanne Hayes-White says the camp presents a huge health and safety concern….

Some are concerned that the pressure to evict Occupy Oakland came largely from the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and other local business associations dominated by representatives from large corporations, including telecommunications companies, big banks, and investment firms…

But the coverage of Occupy Oakland through social media and the blogosphere was hardly dominated by big companies. The Oakland Tribune will host a panel discussion this Saturday on the splash caused by non-journalists reporting on the movement, featuring citizen celebrity Spencer Mills, known on Twitter as OakFoSho…

In other protest news, faculty from Cal State University East Bay and CSU Dominguez Hills are going on strike today to demand the pay raises that were promised and go undelivered. They expect support from other CSU campuses…

Another large construction project has come into question, however, as a panel of Bay Area transportation commissioners criticizes Caltrans for failing to alert anyone that the technician who fabricated test data for other structures also tested the new Bay Bridge. The biggest problem? This information comes after completing assembly of the bridge’s tower foundation, making retesting impossible…

And what seems impossible, but one hundred years from now could be a reality, is the disappearance of Bay Area marshes. If climate scientists’ predictions of a 5.4 foot? sea level rise are correct, 93% of the bay’s tidal wetlands will vanish, and along with them tens of thousands of species of birds and other wildlife that call those wetlands home…

Thousands of foreclosed homes that pose a safety or health concern are now being handled more frequently by receiverships, a legal process in which control of the property is temporarily transferred to a court-appointed officer. This is a way for city officials to take hold of empty homes that could lead to blight, which is a step beyond the fines that homeowners usually incur for leaving their homes in disrepair…

Homes in San Francisco are still considered a hot commodity, so much so that a mere 25 percent of San Francisco police officers and 33 percent of firefighters actually live in the city. A 2007 pilot program called Police in the Community Loan offers $20,000 to police officers who buy a home in San Francisco — forgiving that loan after five years of good conduct — but it’s still underutilized.

As many as 10,000 protesters gathered on Sproul Plaza last night for the Occupy UC Berkeley General Assembly. Despite clear warnings from school officials that setting up an encampment would violate university policy, dozens of tents were pitched…

A man who was arrested during OPD’S Monday night raid of Oakland’s encampment may be deported. It is uncertain whether the police will turn Francisco “Pancho” Ramos Stierle over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement…

In San Pablo, the Doctors Medical Center will remain open after voters approved an increase in taxes. Its closure would have left no full-service emergency rooms between Berkeley and Vallejo…

According to AARP, more than 7,000 Americans qualify for Medicare every day. Still, some say that training to care for seniors isn’t a priority in medical education. Oakland’s Samuel Merritt School of Nursing addresses that through a senior performance troupe…

Across the Bay, the San Francisco 49ers are enjoying their best season in years. Meanwhile, Santa Clara’s City Council approved a $10 million project to prepare the site of a new 49ers football stadium. The first game in Santa Clara is slated for 2015…

The Bay Area may be losing more than just a longstanding sports franchise – we might lose an entire sport. After 70 years, Golden Gate Fields horse racing track may close, leaving no year-round tracks north of Bakersfield. Instead, a new Lawrence Berkeley Lab may take its place.